Thor Secures 3 New Lessees in Houston
By · CommentsThor Equities has secured new leases with Hancock Whitney Bank, Novum Energy and Regency Centers for a combined 36,775 square feet in 3200 Kirby, a component of the Kirby Collection, a new 186,000-square-foot Class A office building and luxury mixed-use development in Houston.
“We are pleased to welcome Hancock Whitney Bank, Novum Energy and Regency Centers to Kirby Collection,” Joseph Sitt, Thor Equities’ CEO, said in a prepared release. “All three tenants were attracted to the project’s highly desirable location, attractive amenities and modern design.”
The last-minute Republican additions to the Senate tax bill include one apparently designed to appease mortgage lenders who worried that the legislation could cost them billions of dollars and drive some small firms out of the business.
A measure offered by South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds was described as “exempting mortgage service rights from new income inclusion rule” in a list of items to be included in the “manager’s amendment” obtained by Bloomberg News. The list was confirmed by two people familiar with the plans, but plans remained fluid Friday afternoon.
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Lending curbs biting in economies from New Zealand to Canada
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Household debt remains dilemma with some levels still rising
Central bankers are starting to see promising results from one of the recent additions to their monetary policy toolbox.
Lending curbs to stem financial risk — so-called macroprudential limits — have helped slow risky borrowing and temper property price bubbles in countries from New Zealand to Canada, a host of financial stability reports showed this week. While there hasn’t been uniform success — Hong Kong’s housing market shows no signs of cooling — it’s given central banks some breathing space to be more gradual in tightening monetary policy…
Allianz Takes Stake in SL Green’s NYC Trophy Tower
By · CommentsAllianz Real Estate has acquired a 43 percent stake in 1515 Broadway in Manhattan’s Times Square from SL Green Realty Corp., capping of a year of investments in U.S. real estate reaching $3.5 billion.
The firm, one of the world’s leading insurers and asset managers, now has $16.3 billion in assets under management in the United States. Allianz Real Estate manages investment programs on behalf of a number of Allianz group companies around the world.
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Sees many units pricing over 1 billion yen as wealthy flock
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Development to be more upscale than Mori’s Roppongi Hills: Oba
Mori Building Co. has started work on a luxury residential development in Tokyo that will include units priced from 1 billion yen ($9 million), betting there is untapped demand for the most upscale apartments in the city.
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Nordea’s Emerging Stars fund holds Samsung, Tencent, Alibaba
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Fund has delivered annual return of 11% in past five years
When investors get nervous about the Chinese markets, it’s an opportunity for some to snap up stocks in the country’s emerging global powerhouses.
A lot of the worries about China and its financial system are “exaggerated”, according to Jorry Noeddekaer, the head of emerging markets at Nordea Asset Management in Copenhagen…
DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center Turns to Solar
By · CommentsAmeresco Inc. has entered into a contract with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to build a nearly 2.5-megawatt solar power system at the El Paso Intelligence Center located on Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
The Energy Saving Performance Contract (ESPC) was awarded to Ameresco under the ESPC ENABLE program, which describes the process for small federal agency projects to leverage third-party financed energy technologies in six months or less. Ameresco will finance, build, own and operate the solar system for a period of 20 years under the contract…
It’s not the end of the carried interest loophole, but JPMorgan Chase & Co. believes there’s another way U.S. tax reform could end up hurting hedge funds.
“We think the market is underestimating the probability of tax reform passage; the potential performance risk to active managers with high exposure to growth/momentum could be significant in the near term,” writes equity derivatives strategist Shawn Quigg…
JPMorgan Sees Pain for Growth Stocks and Their Hedge Fund Fans
Duke Adds Tenant to Miami Industrial Logistics Center
By · CommentsCushman & Wakefield has negotiated a long-term lease at Miami Industrial Logistics Center, a three-building warehouse and distribution center in the Hialeah Gardens submarket of Miami. Pro Intermodal LLC will occupy a total of 104,616 square feet, including 2,500 square feet of spec office space.
Singapore Property Prices Vulnerable to Rising Supply
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MAS cites potential supply of 20,000 private housing units
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Slower population growth creates ‘uncertainty’ on demand: MAS
The rising supply of homes and slowing population growth may undermine the recent recovery in Singapore residential property prices, according to the country’s central bank.
Future development projects could potentially add 20,000 private housing units over the next one or two years, more than doubling the existing number available for sale, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in its annual financial stability report published Thursday…
Singapore Property Prices Vulnerable to Rising Supply
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Dow vaulted past 24,000 as technology recovers from rout
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U.S. Senate suspends tax bill debate as cracks appear
Asian stocks pared early gains at the start of the last month of 2017 and S&P 500 Index futures declined as the U.S. tax bill encountered stumbling blocks. The dollar headed for its first weekly gain in four weeks ahead of the tax vote.
KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT Inc., a non-traded REIT based in Newport Beach, Calif., sold 11 properties totaling a net leasable area of about 3.2 million square feet to subsidiaries of Keppel-KBS US REIT for $804 million, the seller announced Tuesday. The buyer is a newly formed Singaporean REIT that recently listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.
The new REIT and its underlying properties will be externally managed by a joint venture between Keppel Capital Holdings Pte. Ltd. and an entity in which KBS Capital Advisors Co-Founders Keith D. Hall and Peter McMillan III have an indirect ownership interest…
Brexit Swings a Sledgehammer at Britain’s Housing Market
By · CommentsPhilip Hammond promised just last week to “fix Britain’s broken housing market.” One slight problem is that Brexit threatens to take a sledgehammer to the plan hatched by the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Now, it’s unfair to pin the blame for the imminent departure from the EU on Hammond. He’s probably the keenest Europhile in Theresa May’s fractious Conservative cabinet. But there were already quite a few doubts swirling around his aim to build 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade…
Brexit Swings a Sledgehammer at Britain’s Housing Market
Hedge Fund Manager Who Bet on Botox Turns to Rival
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Daewoong Pharmaceutical stock has almost doubled in 2017
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Crossover expects company to win approval to sell in the U.S.
Navroze Alphonse bet on Botox before the wrinkle treatment became a blockbuster drug for Allergan Plc. Now, the hedge-fund manager is bullish on a potential competitor.
The wager is on Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co. entering the lucrative U.S. market, for which the company and a partner filed an application in May after completingclinical trials. Daewoong’s Botox rival, Nabota, was first sold at home in South Korea in 2014 and is now available in about 60 countries. Daewoong expects it will take at least a year to win U.S. approval and a symbolic step came last month, when Nabota was assigned a formal name in the U.S…
To End U.K. Housing Shortage, Build More Houses. Duh.
By · CommentsBritish politicians should address supply constraints rather than tinkering with demand.
Rarely has a solution to a problem been so easy to imagine and yet so hard to implement as in the case of the U.K. housing crisis. Britain needs to build more houses, particularly in overcrowded areas such as the southeast. Yet politicians prefer to tinker with demand: This will simply to push up prices, at the expense of new buyers.
China’s Lending Crackdown Is Notable for Three Reasons
By · CommentsThe platforms have mushroomed from fewer than 10 to more than 2,000, but only a few hundred operate with government-issued permits.
Policy makers from the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission convened in Beijing on Nov. 23 to discuss new measures to crackdown on online consumer loan platforms, including those for payday loans and peer-to-peer lending. On the same day, Alibaba Group affiliate Ant Financial said it will enforce a cap of 24 percent on interest rates charged by lenders on its website, or 12 percentage points lower than current rates. The lenders affected by the new cap include Qudian, which had recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange…
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Values rise 0.1% on the month, 2.5% versus year earlier
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Nationwide says Budget measures may only have modest effect
U.K. house-price growth barely rose this month, according to Nationwide Building Society, which said demand is being partly restrained by weaker consumer sentiment.
Values increased 0.1 percent from October, leaving the annual gain at 2.5 percent. That’s within the range seen in 2017, though it’s well below the pace of recent years…
U.K. House Prices Barely Rise as Income Squeeze Hits Confidence
Hong Kong Property Doom Doesn’t Begin at 1%
By · CommentsHong Kong’s one-month interbank rate has reached its highest level since the global financial crisis. But don’t expect the city’s real estate prices to halt their spiral anytime soon, whatever the International Monetary Fund may say.
Blame banks and property developers.
Around 94 percent of mortgages in the world’s least affordable property market are tied to the Hong Kong interbank offered rate, so the surge above 1 percent will cause some pain…
Hong Kong Property Doom Doesn’t Begin at 1%
Westcore Properties has acquired two class A industrial buildings totaling more than one million square feet in San Bernardino, Calif., from Bentall Kennedy. Westcore took over management of the property upon closing.
Located at 7776 E. Tippecanoe Ave. and 927 E. 9th St., both buildings were constructed in 2009 by Higgins Development Partners. The assets are cross-dock facilities with 30 feet of clear height and large, secured truck courts…
Westcore Properties Nabs Industrial Portfolio in San Bernardino, CA
Demand Breaks Records in Salt Lake City
By · CommentsSalt Lake City’s multifamily market continues to be one of the strongest in the country. Thanks to solid employment gains that are producing high demand across asset classes, the city remains attractive to investors and developers alike.
The End of the U.S. Housing Shortage Is Finally in Sight
By · CommentsHFF Arranges $27M MOB Portfolio Recap
By · CommentsHFF— acting by and through Holliday GP Corp.—has secured a $26.6 million recapitalization and financing of a six-property medical office building portfolio on behalf of Catalyst HRE. HFF has also procured the investor, Charter Realty Group. The team—Director Anthony Frogameni, Senior Director Ben Appel and Analyst Matt DiCesare, all of HFF, arranged fixed-rate senior financing through Capital One. HFF’s national medical office building team, comprising Managing Director Evan Kovac, Director Andrew Milne and Associate Zack Drozda, also assisted in the transaction.
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Mortgage bankers: Bill changes treatment of mortgage servicing
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Group says some small lenders would likely exit mortgages
The mortgage industry is panicking over a provision in the Senate tax bill that some analysts and trade groups say may drive small lenders out of the business.
The Mortgage Bankers Association and other bank and mortgage trade groups scrambled over Thanksgiving weekend after staff members discovered a provision in the bill that would change the time at which lenders pay taxes on the streams of income they earn from managing borrowers’ mortgages…
CBRE Arranges San Antonio MOB Sale
By · CommentsStream Realty Partners has sold an 80,000-square-foot specialty medical office building in San Antonio. PPH Real Estate LLC—a partnership between local physicians and investors—purchased the asset. Scott Herbold of CBRE’s Capital Markets arranged the transaction.
Located at 5109 Medical Drive on the CHRISTUS Santa Rosa medical center campus, the four-story building was built in 2008 on a long-term ground lease with CHRISTUS Health. It was planned and assembled for intensive clinical research studies for pharmaceutical R&D. The new owner is planning to bring further services to the medical center campus…
A gauge of signed contracts to purchase previously-owned U.S. homes rose in October by the most in eight months, primarily due to a jump in the South region that had been impacted by hurricanes, according to data released Wednesday from the National Association of Realtors in Washington…
U.S. Pending Home Sales Rose in October by Most in Eight Months
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Ogaki and Loh to start with $75 million in seed capital
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Model tests returned annualized 12.7% gain over past decade
Two former JPMorgan Chase & Co. foreign-exchange option traders will start a quantitative hedge fund in January, using artificial intelligence to trade currency options.
Atsuo Ogaki and Damien Loh have established Ensemble Capital Pte Ltd. in Singapore with capital $75 million from high-net worth investors, family offices and institutional investors, Ogaki, who has taken the chief executive officer role, said in an interview…
Ex-JPMorgan Traders Start Singapore Currency Options Quant Fund
Reno Distribution Center Changes Hands
By · CommentsLBA Realty has acquired the Mary’s Gone Crackers Manufacturing and Distribution Center in Reno, Nev., from CP Logistics NVCC Building A2 LLC, a partnership between California State Teachers’ Retirement System and Panattoni Development Co., for $29 million.
JLL represented the joint venture in the sale of the 423,001-square-foot Class A industrial asset…
SteelWave, Invesco Grab LA Times Facility in SoCal
By · CommentsThe 24-acre former L.A. Times printing facility in Orange County, Calif., gets a new owner and a new future. In their first joint venture, SteelWave and Invesco Real Estate recently acquired The Press from Tribune Media and Kearny Real Estate Co. in an approximately $65 million transaction.
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House plan would limit home mortgage tax deduction to $500,000
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Legislation seen threatening home ownership ‘American Dream’
Property owners in California, Florida and New York have the most to lose if Congress limits tax deductions for interest payments on home mortgages, according to a Bloomberg analysis of Zillow data.
Assuming a 20 percent down payment, the three states together are estimated to have more than 80,000 homes currently listed for sale where the mortgage could reach at least $500,000, the limit laid out for new home sales in the House Republican tax plan. In California, that’s 44 percent of homes on the market…
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Chinese creditor files against two Huishan subsidiaries
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Hang Seng Bank filed to appoint joint provisional liquidator
China Huishan Dairy Holdings Co., the Hong Kong-listed company targeted by short sellers including Muddy Waters Capital LLC, said that a Chinese creditor has filed bankruptcy restructuring applications against two of the firm’s units.
The latest action is a further sign that creditors are closing in on the embattled dairy firm, as offshore and onshore lenders jostle for the firm’s assets. It comes shortly after Hang Seng Bank filed an application for the appointment of joint provisional liquidators on Nov. 25. Huishan Dairy earlier this month said that it is preparing for provisional liquidation…
Macerich Snags $86M for Chicago Office Asset
By · CommentsThe Macerich Co. has completed the sale of an office building in Chicago for $86.4 million. The asset was unencumbered and wholly-owned by Macerich.
Located at 500 N. Michigan Ave., the 326,000-square-foot tower features 24 floors. Originally completed in 1967, the building underwent cosmetic renovations in 2009. The asset offers 55 parking spaces, floor plates ranging from 13,435 to 13,900 square feet, seven passenger elevators and 2,000 square feet of first floor retail…
Griffin Closes Nashville’s Top 2017 Office Deal
By · CommentsIn the largest office transaction this year in Nashville, Tenn., One Century Place, an eight-story, 538,790-square-foot, Class A office building, changed hands for $100 million. Griffin Capital Co. sold the asset to an entity owned by Syed Shamim of Bahrain.
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Forecasts 2018 losses on credit markets in all three regions
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LNG Capital’s Gargour wary of rising inflation, default risk
Like any good guest at a party, investors would be wise to know when it’s time to leave.
And an aging business cycle, the loss of stimulative central bank policies and signs of stress in corporate balance sheets are all signaling it’s time to get out, according to Morgan Stanley strategists. They project negative excess returns for corporate bonds in the U.S., Europe and Asia next year…
Morgan Stanley Says 2018 Will Be the End of the Credit Rally
China’s Micro-Lending Mess
By · CommentsOnline lenders have serious problems. But banning them would be a mistake.
In their bid to reduce risk, China’s financial regulators are cracking down on a promising business: online micro-lending. Although the industry has some serious problems, killing it off would be a big mistake.
Last week, state media announced that broad changes were coming to the sector, on the orders of the State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee. Approvals of new lenders have been halted, and existing firms are likely to be severely curtailed…
Former Pittsburgh Mill Redevelopment Breaks Ground
By · CommentsFor the first time in at least a decade, the biggest Nordic bank has seen its Swedish mortgage book shrink.
The latest figures show Nordea Bank AB is losing clients in the biggest Scandinavian economy less than three months after saying it plans to move its headquarters to Helsinki from Stockholm for regulatory reasons…
The Biggest Nordic Bank Saw Its Swedish Mortgage Book Shrink
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Prince Miteb agreed to pay settlememtn in corruption probe
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Saudi crown prince said most graft suspects agreed to settle
Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, one of the most senior Saudi royals detained in the kingdom’s declared crackdown on corruption, has been released after reaching a settlement deal believed to exceed the equivalent of $1 billion, an official involved in the anti-graft campaign said…
Saudi Prince Released After $1 Billion Deal, Official Says
London House Prices Are Still Rising Almost Everywhere
By · CommentsHome prices in the U.K. capital continue to move beyond the reach of many. Despite a slowdown linked to tax increases on second-home buyers, and the Brexit vote, London homes are less affordable now than ever before. Prices continue to gallop ahead of wages. The average price of a home in London is now £472,520, up from £470,281 last month, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of preliminary U.K. Land Registry sales data. Prices rose in nearly all of London’s boroughs, except for the hip Hackney area, where they are 0.4 percent down from a year ago, and the central borough of Westminster, which has seen steady declines throughout 2017…
Millennium Properties Arranges IL Warehouse Transaction
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Protection grew most since Wood MacKenzie started tracking
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New contracts cover annualized 897,000 barrels a day of output
Oil explorers took advantage of a market rally to lock in prices for almost 1 million barrels a day’s worth of future output, signaling the shale boom’s staying power as OPEC ponders the extension of its supply curbs…
Million-Barrel Oil Hedging Surge Signals Shale Boom Here to Stay
Hedge Funds Too Busy Surviving to Hire Robots
By · CommentsSmall firms aren’t investing in AI. They may live to regret it.
Rumors of the death of hedge funds have been, as the saying goes, greatly exaggerated. The industry nevertheless faces a battle to remain relevant amid the inexorable rise of low-cost passive strategies. And the smaller players are missing a trick that may cost them in the years ahead…
Hedge Funds Too Busy Surviving to Hire Robots
Premier Delivers Chicago Industrial Property
By · CommentsNH Hotel Group Lands $3B Merger Bid
By · CommentsThe competition between Spanish lodging companies Barceló Hotel Group and NH Hotel Group may soon come to an end. Barceló has extended an offer to acquire NH Hotel and its 400 properties across Europe, the Americas and Africa for a reported $3 billion.
The companies aren’t saying a great deal about the potential merger, but Mallorca-based Barceló did concede in a statement that it is “expressing interest” in such an agreement…
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Digital-coin backers bring investment pitch to Wall Street
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Standing-room only for investors assessing latest craze
Nothing grabs Wall Street’s attention quite like a 10-fold return.
Buttoned-up financiers and analysts piled into CoinDesk’s cryptocurrencies conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, turning the event into a standing-room-only affair…
Wall Street’s Playing Catch-Up at a Crypto Conference It Used to Ignore
423 KSF NV Industrial Center Changes Hands
By · CommentsDutch CRE Market Grows Increasingly Vibrant
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I want to do better in a rising market, SBI MF’s Andani says
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Andani is one of top 10 fund managers in India: Morningstar
In June 1995, a young Sohini Andani showed up uninvited at the Mumbai office of K.R. Choksey, the famous broker and investor, and told him she wanted a job. She’d read about his investment process in a magazine…
How Gandhi Inspired One Woman’s Rise to $3 Billion Fund Manager
Hedge fund firms should consider paying out bonuses before the end of the year so employees can take advantage of current tax breaks before they potentially change, according to Nicholas Tsafos, partner at accounting firm EisnerAmper.
Tsafos, whose firm advises 1,400 hedge fund firms, is encouraging clients to consider doling out bonuses early, instead of the typical February payout, to ensure that workers benefit from existing deductions for state and local levies. The push by Congress to overhaul the tax code for 2018 could scrap or crimp those regulations that allow some residents to decrease their federal taxable income…
MD MOB Breaks Ground
By · CommentsA public-private partnership of Prince George’s County officials, civic and community partners; University of Maryland’s Medical System; and the School of Medicine leaders has broken ground on the University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center.
Located at 900A Blvd. at the Capital Center in Largo, Md., the 595,744-square-foot property will include an 11-story tower with two rooftop helipads. The facility will also comprise 205 acute-care licensed beds, 20 adult observation rooms, 45 ER-treatment bays, 8 operating rooms and 15 beds for pediatric care…
Supply Compresses Rent Growth in Manhattan
By · CommentsRiksbank Governor Stefan Ingves may have tried to talk down concerns about the Swedish housing market, but some of the data he released last week as he presented the central bank’s take on financial stability show those who worry have a point…
Here Are Some Worrying Charts About Sweden’s Housing Market
Orlando Retail Center Lands $22M in Financing
By · CommentsRents Contract as New Units Come Online in Brooklyn
By · CommentsLondon Homes Are Now Less Affordable Than Ever Before
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Hometrack: capital’s price-to-earnings ratio will drift lower
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Still, U.K.’s stamp-duty changes seen having little effect
London homes are less affordable than ever before, despite slowing price growth and government attempts to cut the cost of housing for first-time buyers…
JV to Develop 110 KSF Spec Industrial Asset in SC
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Bank of Canada releases Financial System Review on Tuesday
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Worries about impact of higher rates could impede central bank
There are two things that could impede Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz from raising interest rates further in the coming months: worries about the financial system’s ability to cope with higher borrowing costs and concern that plenty of slack remains in the economy…
Canada’s Debt Problem Gets Helping Hand From Economic Boom
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Collardi resigns to join Pictet as wealth management co-head
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Average partner at Pictet stays at bank for more than 20 years
Boris Collardi stunned investors by stepping down as chief executive officer of wealth manager Julius Baer Group Ltd to join a rival bastion of Swiss private banking…
Swiss Private Banking World Stunned as Baer CEO Joins Rival
C&W Tapped to Lease NJ Office Portfolio
By · CommentsA joint venture between Onyx Equities and Garrison Investments selected Cushman & Wakefield to lease its recently purchased four-building office portfolio in Bergen County, N.J. The properties total 850,000 square feet and the new owners plan to renovate and reposition the assets through a capital improvement program…